G.R. No. 140074 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, VS. JOSEPHINE "JOSIE" SANTOS, MANNY BALTAZAR, JOHN DOE, PETER DOE AND ROGER DOE, ACCUSED-.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

WHEREFORE, as mandated by law, and having found the accused Josephine Santos @ `Josie' of Irisan, Baguio City and the accused Manny Baltazar @ `Candro' of 197 Marcos Highway, Baguio City GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of kidnapping Leonida de la Peña, a female, on December 10, 1996, attended with a host of aggravating circumstances with none to mitigate as above noted, the Court hereby sentences them to each suffer the penalty of DEATH, aside from the accessory penalties imposed under Article 40 of the Revised Penal Code. "Additionally, the subject accused are hereby ordered to indemnify Leonida de la Peña, her heirs, assigns or successors-in-interest for moral damages in the sum of P30,000.00 and to pay the costs." [4] Hence, the automatic appeal, and central to it is the staunch denial made by appellants of any responsibility for the alleged kidnapping incident. While appellants admitted having gone to the house of Leonida on 10 December 1996, they, however, strongly denied having abducted her. It was true, according to them, that they did chance upon the CIS agents two times on their way to Baguio - the first at a point between Urdaneta and Binalonan and the second time at the Twin Peaks by the Kennon Road but that these encounters were "purely accidental." The trial court had well-founded reasons to conclude that the so-called "encounters" between the CIS agents and Josephine Santos and company were indeed far from being "purely accidental." The time of arrival of the two groups at the residence of Leonida de la Peña on the early morning of 10 December 1996 was only a matter of minutes of each other. The CIS agents evidently knew and, in fact, inquired about Leonida's existing account with Josephine Santos. At least twice later on the same day, the CIS agents and the group of Josephine Santos met at stopovers on the way to Baguio City. Appellant Josephine Santos even said that, at a point between Urdaneta City and Binalonan, they were flagged down by the CIS agents in order to tell her that Leonida de la Peña had finally consented to allow Josephine to get the palay in payment of Leonida's debt. But that is just about all. Nothing else can be gathered to support the charge of kidnapping. That there was an existing debt, and that the same remained unpaid as of 10 December 1996, would seem certain. Leonida de la Peña herself acknowledged that no less than Henry Salimbay, the barangay captain, accompanied appellants to her residence for the purpose of collecting payment. The complainant claimed that appellants had dragged and forced her to board the passenger jeepney but, strangely enough, the incident had failed to attract the attention of neighbors, among whom was a kagawad, who could have somehow lent a helping hand to the hapless hostage. The group was then said to have made a stopover at the house of barangay captain Salimbay and later at the police station at the Baguio City Hall and subsequently at a police station along Na